Richard Wagner: The Art-Work of the Future (1849): Part II Chapter 3
Derrick Everett
The most realistic of all arts is that of Dance. Its artistic 'stuff'
is the actual living man; and in troth no single portion of him, but
the whole man from heel to crown, such as he shows himself unto the
eye. It therefore includes within itself the conditions for the
expression of all remaining arts: the singing and speaking man must
necessarily be a bodily man; through his outer form, through the
posture of his limbs, the inner, singing and speaking man comes forth
to view. The arts of Tone and Poetry become first understandable in
that of Dance, the mimetic art, by the entire art-receptive man, i.e.
by him who not only hears but also sees.
The art-work cannot gain its freedom until it proclaims itself directly
to the answering sense, until in addressing this sense the artist is
conscious of the certain understanding of his message. The highest
subject for art's message is man himself; and, for his own complete and
conscious calming, man can at bottom only parley through his bodily
form with the corresponding sense-organ, the eye. Without addressing
the eye, all art remains unsatisfying, and thus itself unsatisfied,
unfree. Be its utterance to the ear, or merely to the combining and
mediately compensating faculty of thought, as perfect as it may; until
it makes intelligible appeal likewise unto the eye, it remains a thing
that merely wills, yet never completely can; but art must 'can,' and
from "können" it is that art in our tongue has fittingly gotten itself
its name "Die Kunst."
The corporeal man proclaims his sensations of weal and woe directly in
and by those members of his body which feel the hurt or pleasure; his
whole body's sense of weal or woe he expresses by means of correlated
and complementary movements of all, or of the most expressive of these
members. From their relation with each other, then from the play of
complementary and accenting motions, and finally from the manifold
interchange of these motions -- as they are dictated by the progressive
change of feelings passing, now by slow degrees and now in violent
haste, from soft repose to passionate turmoil -- from these arise the
very laws of endless-changing motion by the which man rules his
artistic presentation of himself. The savage, governed by the rawest
passions, knows in his dance almost no other change than that from
monotonous tumult to monotonous and apathetic rest. In the wealth and
multiform variety of his transitions speaks out the nobler, civilised
man; the richer and more manifold are these transitions, the more
composed and stable is the ordering of their mutual interchange. But
the law of this ordering is rhythm.
Rhythm is in no wise an arbitrary canon, according to which the
artistic man forsooth shall move his body's limbs; but it is the
conscious soul of those necessary movements by which he strives
instinctively to impart to others his own emotions. If the motion and
the gestures are themselves the feeling Tone of his emotion, then is
their rhythm its articulate speech. The swifter the play of emotion:
the more passionately embarrassed and unclear is the man himself, and
therefore the less capable is he of imparting his emotion in a clear
and intelligible fashion. On the other hand, the more restful the
change: so much the plainer will the emotion show its nature. Rest is
continuance; but continuance of motion is repetition of motion: that
which repeats itself allows of reckoning, and the law of this reckoning
is rhythm.
By means of rhythm does Dance become an art. It is the measure of the
movements by which emotion mirrors forth itself, the measure by which
it first attains that perspicuity which renders understanding possible.
But the 'stuff' by means of which this rhythm makes itself outwardly
discernible and measure-giving, as the autonomous law of motion, is
necessarily taken from another element than that of bodily motion; only
through a thing apart from myself, can I first know myself; but this
thing which lies apart from bodily motion is that which appeals to a
sense that lies apart from the sense to which the body's motion is
addressed; and this fresh sense is hearing. Rhythm -- which sprang from
the inner necessity which spurred corporeal motion on to gain an
understanding -- imparts itself to the dancer, as the outward
manifestment of this necessity, the law of measure, chiefly through the
medium of that which is perceptible by the ear alone, namely sound;
just as in music the abstract measure of rhythm, the 'bar,' is imparted
by a motion cognisable only by the eye. This equal-meted repetition,
springing as it does from motion's innermost necessity, invites alike
and guides the dancer's movements by its exposition through the
rhythmic beat of sound, such as is at first evoked by simple clapping
of the hands, and then from wooden, metal, or other sonorous objects.
However, the mere definition of the points of Time at which a movement
shall repeat itself, does not suffice completely for the dancer who
submits the ordering of his movements to an outwardly perceptible law.
Just as the motion, beside its swift change from time-point to
time-point, is maintained abidingly, and thus becomes a continuous
performance: so does the dancer require that the sound, which had
hitherto vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, shall be compelled to
an abiding continuance, to an extension in regard of Time. He demands,
in short, that the emotion which forms the living soul of his movements
shall be equally expressed in the continuance of the sound; for only so
does the self-dictated rhythmic measure become one that corresponds
completely with the Dance, inasmuch as it embraces not merely one of
the essential conditions of the latter but, as far as possible, all.
This measure must therefore be the embodiment of the essence of Dance
in a separate, but allied, branch of art.
This other branch of art into which Dance yearns instinctively to pass,
therein to find again and know her own true nature, is the art of Tone;
which, in its turn, receives its the solid skeleton from Dance's
rhythm.
Rhythm is the natural, unbreakable bond of union between the arts of
Dance and Tone; without it, no art of Dance, and none of Tone. If
rhythm, as her regulating and unifying law, is the very mind of dance
-- to wit, the abstract summary of corporeal motion -- so is it, on the
other hand, the moving, self-progressive skeleton of Tone. The more
this skeleton invests itself with tonal flesh, the more does the law of
Dance lose its own features in the special attributes of Tone; so much
the more, however, does Dance at like time raise herself to the
capability of that expression of the deeper feelings of the heart by
which alone she can keep abreast of the essential nature of Tone. But
Tone's most living flesh is the human voice; and the word, again, is as
it were the bone-and-muscle rhythm of this human voice. And thus, at
last, the movement-urging emotion, which overflowed from art of Dance
to art of Tone, finds in the definite decision of the word the sure,
unerring utterance by means of which it can both seize itself as
'object' and clearly speak forth what it is. Thus, through tone become
speech, it wins at once its highest satisfaction and its most
satisfying heightening in the tonal art become the art of Poetry; for
it mounts aloft from Dance to mimicry, from the broadest delineation of
general bodily sensations to the subtlest and most compact utterance of
definite mental phases of emotion and of will-force.
>From this frank and mutual permeation, generation, and completion of
each several art from out itself and through its fellow -- which, as
regards Music and Poetry, we have so far merely hinted at -- is born
the united lyric art-work. In it each art is what its nature accords to
it; that which lies beyond its power of being, it does not egoistically
borrow from its fellow, but its fellow is that in its place. It is in
drama, the perfected form of lyric, that each several art unfolds its
highest faculty; and notably that of Dance. In drama, man is at once
his own artistic 'subject' and his 'stuff,' to his very fullest worth.
Now as therein the art of Dance has to set directly forth the separate
or joint expressive movements which are to tell us of the feelings both
of units and of masses; and as the law of rhythm, begotten from her, is
the standard whereby the whole dramatic semblance is brought into
agreement ("Verständigung"), so does Dance withal exalt herself in
drama to her most spiritual expression, that of mimicry. As mimetic
art, she becomes the direct and all-embracing utterance of the inner
man; and it is now no longer the raw material rhythm of sound, but the
spiritual rhythm of speech, that shows itself to her as law; a law,
however, which took its earliest rise from her dictation. What speech
endeavours to convey ("verständlichen"), the whole wide range of
feelings and emotions, ideas and thoughts, which mount from softest
tenderness to indomitable energy, and finally proclaim themselves as
naked will: all this becomes an unconditionally intelligible,
unquestioned truth through mimetic art alone; nay, speech itself cannot
become a true and quite convincing physical utterance without the
immediate aid of mimicry. From this, the drama's pinnacle, Dance
broadens gradually down again to her original domain: where speech now
only hints and pictures; where Tone, as rhythm's soul, restricts
herself to homage of her sister; and where the beauty of the body and
its movements alone can give direct and needful utterance to an
all-dominating, all-rejoicing feeling.
Thus Dance reaches in drama her topmost height, entrancing where she
orders, affecting where she subordinates herself; ever and throughout
herself: because ever spontaneous and, therefore, of indispensable
necessity. For only where an art is indispensable, is it alike the
whole thing that it is and can and should be.
Just as in the building of the Tower of Babel, when their speech was
confounded and mutual understanding made impossible, the nations
severed from each other, each one to go its several way: so, when all
national solidarity had split into a thousand egoistic severalities,
did the separate art-branches cut-off themselves from the proud and
heaven-soaring tree of drama, which had lost the inspiring soul of
mutual understanding.
Let us consider for a moment what fate befell the art of Dance, when
she left the graceful chain of sisters, to seek her fortune in the
world's great wilderness.
Though Dance now ceased to offer to the mawkish and sentimental
schoolmaster-poetry of Euripides the hand of fellowship which the
latter cast away in sullen arrogance, only to take it later when humbly
proffered for an 'occasional' service ("Zweckleistung"); though she
parted from her philosophical sister who, with sour-faced frivolity,
could only envy and no longer love her youthful charms: yet she could
not wholly dispense with the help of her bosom friend, Tone. By an
indisruptible band was she linked to her, for the art of Tone held fast
within her hands the key to her very soul. But, as after the death of a
father in whose love his children have all been knit together, and have
held their life-goods as one common store, the heirs in selfish strife
compute the several stock of each, so did Dance contend that this key
was wrought by her, and claimed it back as the first condition of her
now separate life. Willingly did she forego the feeling tones of her
sister's Voice; for by this voice, whose marrow was the word of Poetry,
she must forsooth have felt herself inextricably chained to that proud
leader! But this instrument, of wood or metal, the musical tool which
her sister, in sweet urgence to inspire with her soulful breath even
the dead stuff of nature, had fashioned for the buttress and
enhancement of her voice, this tool, which verily was fit enough to
mete for her the needful guiding measure of rhythm and of beat, nay
even to wellnigh imitate the tonal beauty of her sister's voice, the
musical instrument she took with her. Not caring for aught else, she
left her sister Tone to float adown the shoreless stream of Christian
harmony, tied to her faith in words, the while she cast herself in
easy-going self-sufficiency upon the pleasure-craving places of the
world.
We know too well this tricked-out figure: who is it that has not come
across her? Wherever fatuous modern ease girds itself up to seek for
entertainment, she sets herself with utmost complaisance upon the
scene, and plays, for gold, whatever pranks one wills. Her highest
faculty, the use of which she can no longer see, the faculty of
ransoming by her mien and gestures the thought of Poetry in its
yearning for actual human birth, she has lost or made away in
thoughtless foolishness, and minds her not to whom. With all the
features of her face, with all the gestures of her limbs, she has
nothing now to bring to light but unconfined complaisance. Her solitary
care is lest she should seem capable of making a refusal; and of this
care she unburdens herself by the only mimetic expression of which she
still is mistress, by the most unruffled smile of unconditional
surrender to each and all. With her features set in this unchangeable
and fixed expression, she answers the demand for change and motion by
her lower limbs alone; all her artistic capability has sunk down from
her vertex, through her body, to her feet. Head, neck, trunk and thighs
are only present as unbidden guests; whereas her feet have undertaken
to show alone what she can do, and merely for the sake of needful
balance call on her arms and hands for sisterly support. What in
private life, when our modern citizens, in accordance with tradition
and the time-killing habits of society, indulge themselves in dance, in
our so-called balls, it is only allowable to timidly suggest with all
the woodenness of civilised vapidity: that is permitted to the kindly
ballerina to tell aloud upon the public stage with frankest candour;
for her gestures, forsooth, are merely art and not reality, and now
that she has been declared beyond the law, she stands above the law. In
effect, we may let ourselves be incited by her, without, for all that,
following in our moral life her incitations; just as, on the other
hand, religion also offers us its incitations, to goodness and to
virtue, and yet we are not in the smallest bound to yield to them in
everyday existence. art is free; and the art of Dance draws her profit
from this freedom. And she does right in this: else what were freedom
made for?
How comes it that this noble art has fallen so low that, in our public
art-life, she can only find her passport and her lease of life as the
hasp of all the banded arts of harlotry? That she must give herself
beyond all ransom into the most dishonouring chains of nethermost
dependence? Because everything torn from its connexions, every egoistic
unit, must needs become in truth unfree, i.e. dependent on an alien
master. The mere corporeal man, the mere emotional, the mere
intellectual man, are each incapable of any self-sufficience of the
genuine man. The exclusiveness of their nature leads them into every
excess of immoderation; for the salutary measure arises only -- and of
itself -- from the community of natures like and yet unlike. But
immoderation is the absolute un-freedom of any being; and this
unfreedom must of necessity evince itself as dependence upon sheer
externals.
In her separation from true music, and especially from Poetry, Dance
not only gave up her highest attributes, but she also lost a portion of
her individuality. Only that is individual, which can beget from out
itself: Dance was a completely individual art for just so long as she
could bring forth from her inmost nature, and her need, the laws in
accordance with which she came to an intelligible manifestment. Today
the only remaining individual dance is the national dance of the
people; for, as it steps into the world of show, it proclaims its own
peculiar nature in inimitable fashion by gestures, rhythm, and beat,
whose laws itself had made instinctively; while these laws only become
cognisable and communicable when they have really issued from the
art-work of the people as the abstract of its essence. Further
evolution of the folk-dance towards the richer capabilities of art is
only possible by union with the arts of Tone and Poetry, no longer
tyrannised by Dance, but bearing themselves as free agents; for only
amid the correlated faculties, and under the stimulation, of these arts
can she unfold and broaden out her individual faculties to their
fullest compass.
The Grecian lyric art-work shows us how the laws of rhythm, the
individual mark of Dance, were developed in the arts of Tone and, above
all, of Poetry to endless breadth and manifold richness of
characterisation by the individuality of these very arts, and thus gave
back to Dance an inexhaustible store of novel stimulus to the finding
of fresh movements peculiar to herself; and how, in lively joy of
fecund interaction, the individuality of each several art was able thus
to lift itself to its most perfect fill. The modern folk-dance could
never bring to bearing the fruits of such an interaction: for as all
folk-art of the modern nations was nipped in the bud by Christianity
and Christian-political civilisation, neither could it, a solitary
shrub, bush out in rich and manifold development. Yet the only
individual phenomena in the domain of Dance known to our world of today
are the sheer products of the people, such as they have budded, or even
now still bud, from the character of this or that nationality. All our
actual civilised Dance is but a compilation from these dances of the
people: the folk-styles of every nationality are taken up by her,
employed, and mutilated, but not developed farther; because, as an art,
she only feeds herself on foreign food. Her procedure, therefore, is
ever a mere intentional and artificial copying, patching together, and
dovetailing; in no wise a bringing forth and new-creating. Her nature
is that of mode, which, of sheer craving for vicissitude, gives today
to this style, tomorrow to that, the preference. She is therefore
forced to found her arbitrary systems, to set her purpose down in
rules, and to proclaim her will in needless axioms and assumptions, in
order to enable her disciples to comprehend and execute it. But these
rules and systems wholly isolate her as an art, and fence her off from
any healthy union with another branch of art for mutual collaboration.
Un-nature, held to artificial life by laws and arbitrary formulæ, is
from top to bottom egoistic; and as it is incapable of bringing forth
from out itself; so also is any wedding of it a thing impossible.
This art has therefore no love-need; she can only take, but not give.
She draws all foreign life-stuff into herself, disintegrates and
devours it, assimilating it with her own unfruitful being; but cannot
blend herself with any element whose life is based on grounds outside
her, because she cannot give herself.
Thus does our modern Dance attempt in pantomime the task of drama. Like
every isolated, egoistic branch of art, she fain would be all things
unto herself, and reign in lonely all-sufficiency. She would picture
men and human events, conditions, conflicts, characters and motives,
without employing that faculty by which man first attains completion,
speech. She would poetise, without the faintest comradeship with
Poetry. And what does she breed, in this demure exclusiveness and
"independence"? The most utterly dependent and crippled monstrosity:
men who cannot talk; and not forsooth since some mischance has robbed
them of the gift of speech, but since their stubborn choice forbids
their speaking; actors whose release from some unholy spell we look for
every moment, if only they could gain the courage to end the painful
stammering of their gestures by a wholesome spoken word, but whom the
rules and prescripts of pantomimic art forbid to dishallow by one
natural syllable the unflecked sense of Dance's independence.
Yet so lamentably dependent is this absolute dumb spectacle, that in
its happiest moments it only ventures to concern itself with dramatic
stuffs that require to enter on no relations with the human reason,
nay, even in the most favourable of such cases, still sees itself
compelled to the ignominious expedient of acquainting the spectators
with its particular intention by means of an explanatory programme!
Yet herewith is undeniably manifested the remnant of Dance's noblest
effort; she would still at least be somewhat, and soars upward to the
yearning for the highest work of art, the drama; she seeks to withdraw
from the wanton gaze of frivolity, and clutches after some artistic
veil wherewith to cloak her shameful nakedness. But into what a
dishonouring dependence must she cast herself, in the very appearance
of this effort! With what pitiable distortion must she expiate the vain
desire for unnatural self-dependence! She, without whose highest and
most individual help the highest, noblest art-work cannot attain to
show, must -- severed from the union of her sisters -- take refuge from
prostitution in absurdity, from absurdity in prostitution!
O glorious Dance! O shameful Dance!
(Tr. W.A. Ellis, with some corrections and changes for readability)
--
Derrick Everett
======= Writing from 59°54'N 10°37'E =======
http://home.c2i.net/monsalvat/index.htm
http://home.c2i.net/monsalvat/wagnerfaq.htm